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Why Detecting Drones Is a Tough Gig
An anonymous reader writes with a link to some interesting commentary at Help Net Security from Drone Lab CEO Zain Naboulsi about a security issue of a (so far) unusual kind: detecting drones whose masters are bent on malice. That's relevant after the recent drone flight close enough to the White House to spook the Secret Service, and that wasn't the first -- even if no malice was involved. Drones at their most dangerous in that context are small, quiet, and flying through busy, populated spaces, which makes even detecting them tough, never mind defeating them. From the article, which briefly describes pros and cons of various detection methods: Audio detection does NOT work in urban environments - period. Most microphones only listen well at 25 to 50 feet so, because of the ambient noise in the area, any audio detection method would be rendered useless at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. It is also too simple for an operator to change the sound signature of a drone by buying different propellers or making other modifications. It doesn't take much to defeat the many weaknesses of audio detection.
Are they warmer than a bird? Maybe heat detection?
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Use a plain old radio direction finder?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
essentially, as of Right Now, drones will avoid and evade at will (of controllers).
I assume detecting the RF signature of the transmitter controlling the drone is the best way.
Of course there are these problems:
1. There are many signals on the bands used for RC.
2. It is possible to build an autonomous drone.
3. In these days of software defined radio, people can spin up non-off-the-shelf, non-standard radio control systems.
Omne ignotum pro magnifico.
It *might* be possible to use an overlapping LIDAR system to pickup on small flying objects. The number of sensors required and the systems integration required would be an enormous task though.
Architectural plans are like computer source code with a couple of differences: You only compile once.
These days you'd set a waypoint, send your drone off, and drive away. There's no RF to speak of, unless you're live-streaming it over LTE.
*if* said system had a payload of a brick of C4, or a fragmentation grenade, or a zipgun, it could be made to be quite a threat at 2lbs... Just saying, ergo the paranoia about letting people fly across the White House lawn with one.
Thirty four characters live here.
The typical multirotor "drone" is necessarily built very lightweight; the electronics and motors are not typically shielded much at all. The brushless motors emit stupid amounts of RF energy due to unshielded motors, multiple banks of ESC's covered by nothing but heatshrink, etc. It shouldn't be particularly hard to spot a fast moving, localized source of RF noise at frequencies typical of multirotor motors.
Then there is heat. The ESCs and motors are HOT. Again, mass must be minimized so there is no easy way to hide that heat. A bright infrared spot zipping along at 50' altitude shouldn't be hard to detect.
For things that are piloted with FPV cameras there is a big video return signal coming off the craft. Due to antenna size this is usually some UHF frequency and fairly loud. The range of possible frequencies is vast, but in the real world there are a limited number of cost effective miniature transmitters available, so it isn't difficult to anticipate the likely frequencies.
Seems like there are a number of tell-tails that shouldn't be hard to exploit if you are serious about it have the means...
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
It's about being able to deflect them and prevent them from doing bad things.
Sure, it's easier to deal with something you can detect in the first place, but if you can effectively block them by putting up barriers, physical and electronic you will have succeeded in your primary goal. So here's my approach..
1. Do your best to detect them, use sound, video and detect the RF signals emitted by the device and the pilot.
2. Erect physical barriers that are not visible to the operator or the device. I'm thinking there is a LOT you can do with simple fishing line in this regard, but I'm sure a lot of tall trees would serve an excellent purpose too. Put up an obstacle course.
3. Put up electronic fences using short range GPS and WiFi jamming around the "protected" area. You can effectively reduce the ability of a drone to find it's way around and make it impossible for it to be remotely controlled.
4. Concentrate your efforts on finding the PILOT. They will likely have an RF transmitter in their hands, so it shouldn't be that hard, unless the drone is self guided (which is why you jam GPS and provide physical barriers).
5. And Finally, if you do detect something flying where you don't want, come up with some non-lethal ways of bringing it down. You don't need to fire anti-aircraft guns at it, there are ways I can think of which wouldn't present much risk to people, but would be effective in bringing down your average hobbyist's drone.
So I say again, detection is but a small piece of the total security puzzle here, and trying to use audio detection is about the LAST way I'd try it...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Ah; but the damage of a 2 pound multirotor might not be physical -- it could be the intel captured on its camera/mic setup.
For that matter, the multirotor could be the homing beacon for some remote-fired homing system.
Let me drop a 2 pound drone on your head from just 10 feet above you.
IF you survive it is unlikely you'll make such ignorant statements ever again, and I'm not even talking about loading it up with ordinance or even simply flying into you at high speed.
It's is trivial for a 2 pound drone to kill you by accident, all it takes is the most minimal effort to do it intentionally.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Are you really afraid of a 2 pound multirotor? Do you really think it will ever be possible to achieve that much destruction with one? I really hate seeing fear mongering, be realistic and see there is very little danger from the current hobby sized systems available.
Actually people have been accidentally killed by hobbyist model planes, and by multirotors.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...
Easy detection method #48:
(1) Send out a large electromagnetic pulse
(2) If it falls out of the sky, it was a drone
Still, being able to pinpoint the pilot based on RF emissions and get there quickly might be a good idea...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Personally I would consider the surveillance activity just as dangerous. Despite what they tell you, all security systems have weak points which may not be visible externally, but if you can observe from the right angles become obvious. Knowing the weak points in advance can make a successful assault out of a bad idea.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
You can't build a net so high that someone can't fly over.
It's hard to build a net that can't be easily cut through.
It's hard to build a net that doesn't destroy the view.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Why not use cameras instead? I'm not talking about motion detecting ones, which are not going to very reliable, but what about color detection? Most drones stand out distinctly from the sky they're flying in, and you can see glints of light and such from them. You could also simply have human surveillance watch out for them - they tend to be pretty good at telling birds from drones. Machines aren't replacements for humans at everything, you know...
"Set a man a fire, he'll be warm for the rest of the night. Set a man afire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
What about a combination of image detection and echo-location? Image recognition and/or regular sound detection would identify candidate objects, and narrowly-focused echo location would then scrutinize the candidates further.
And so what if you take out a few birds accidentally? Just place a KFC nearby to handle such. They'll enjoy the free raw materials.
Table-ized A.I.
Personally I don't think concentrating on the detection problem is the best approach. We can jam, and we can put up barriers and reduce a lot of the risks with very low cost. We already have RF direction finding capability which could be deployed to pinpoint not only the drone but the pilot's location, it's a little costly, but it's out there and would be nearly off the shelf. Trying to build a RADAR or IR sensor to hone in on the drone is a nice idea, but high cost, low reward.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
If it carries a few ounces of anthrax or ricin, then yes.
Have gnu, will travel.
2 pound
You just pull that figure out of your butt?
Not that a 2 lbs craft is harmless, but 2 lbs is light. According to the FAA the upper limit for "recreational" UAVs is 55 lbs. It is easy to get into the 10's of lbs with big, extended range batteries, a high res camera, multi-axis gimbal, etc. Really easy. Whipping along at modest 60 mph you can cover 10-15 miles on today's batteries.
Anyone that can't see the potential of that is a fool.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
Typically? Somebody with enough resources could add shielding with high-end light materials. Catching nuts with deep pockets or lots of time may be a much bigger problem than catching off-the-shelf attempts.
Table-ized A.I.
Just think of a drone as a big mosquito.
Have gnu, will travel.
http://xkcd.com/1523/
The more I think about this, the more I like it.
#include "standard_disclaimer.h"
IANAE (Biologist not an engineer) but since drones are light, the motors can't be well shielded. Appears to be a common problem, at least with readily available commercial stuff.
http://www.rtl-sdr.com/rtl-sdr-running-adsb-on-a-quadrocopter/
So, what you're saying is that if someone builds a drone with RF shields on their motors, with hyper-quiet rotors, GPS only autonomous nav, and perhaps an invisibility cloak system they too can evade the drone-police? Thank you, good sers!
This is the NSA, we're gonna geet U h@x0r5! Also, what is a h@x0r5?
I don't think concentrating on the detection problem is the best approach
Yeah, well word #2 in this story's subject is "Detecting," so I went with that. Silly me.
not only the drone but the pilot's location
Detecting the "pilot" is actually the hardest part. $200 buys a programmable autopilot that will drop a UAV on any GPS coordinate the batteries can reach — sans pilot. Signals can come from any radio system, including ubiquitous ones like cell towers, so good luck finding that needle in the urban haystack.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
So we shouldn't place control on non-LOS 50+ lb drones because there exist 2 lb LOS-only drones? I can put enough C4 on a 2 lb drone to cause problems. The glass on the White House is designed to stop a .50 cal armor piercing sniper bullet. If you wanted to shoot the president, you'd be better off shooting through the wall. But a pound or two of C4 on a small drone, landing at the base of the wall may damage it enough for a clear shot, or dislodge one of the supremely heavy windows. Though I suspect that wouldn't work, for other reasons.
Learn to love Alaska
http://slashdot.org/submission...
http://slashdot.org/submission...
http://slashdot.org/submission...
Because Slashdot is pulling the wool over your eyes.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Somebody with enough resources
...and right there you've just narrowed the pool of potential threats. Defense isn't about guarantees. Raising the bar is all you can ever achieve.
Give them "enough resources" and they'll nuke you from orbit.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
The self piloted drone doesn't get to it's destination w/o a GPS fix. Short range GPS jammers are off the shelf, *easy* use, and not expensive.
Remember, I'm saying that detection is down on my list of things to develop, that other things have a better cost/reward and are based on existing technology.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Except a lot of drones can now autopilot their way to GPS way points. Set it and forget it, no RF control needed.
When it comes to drones we have a hell of a lot more to fear from the ones coming out of Pennsylvania ave than the ones flying over it.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Good luck jamming inertia
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
Good luck jamming inertia
Which is why you put up GPS jamming and physical barriers too. Inertial nav is only accurate over short distances, unless you have some external way to calibrate your nav system and can remove the various bias issues caused by vibration, temperature changes and other things that cause changes in the gyros (mechanical, laser ring or otherwise). Usually inertial nav's need to be calibrated, and they do that with GPS (or some other system like LORAN) in order to maintain enough accuracy over time.
Nothing is perfect, but you do the best you can with the resources you have and you live with the risks you cannot afford to fix. I'm suggesting that there is bigger bang for the buck in other things than trying to go out and detect these things in flight.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
f=ma
Required reading for internet skeptics
With a lot you can simply plug the controller into a computer or cell phone. Then even if you somehow found the person using a common frequency among tens of thousands of others the controller could be anywhere by the time he has the thing take off.
Even if it wasn't plugged into a computer it would be hard to find someone using the 2.4ghz wifi band when every phone, tablet, laptop, game console, ipod, bluetooth and other things are running on it.
Shaped charge. You don't need any skill or knowledge, just get a hold of an old Soviet RPG round designed for armor penetration. Those things will penetrate tank armor and kill everyone inside... bulletproof glass would be like nothing. No sniper needed.
Just hook up it up to the internet with a 4g modem on the drone, leave the drone somewhere for a few days and connect to it from across the world
I never said it was a perfect solution, only that it might be a good idea to try to do this. There really isn't that many WiFi connections out there to monitor, especially ones that would have enough coverage to enable the control of a Hobbyist's drone on a public street. Surely one could winnow down the possible bad guys by keeping track of the environment and filtering out the benign signals and those devices that where connecting to the known Access Points, then looking at the signals left and eliminated any that where too weak to be used. I'm guessing you will have a pretty short list after that...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Yeah, because someone who's determined to kill a politician will be scared off by the idea of being jailed for flying a drone near them. Meanwhile, in ten years, every tourist in DC will have a selfie drone, and companies will be renting drones so people can 'visit' remotely over the Internet. How many of those do you plan to lock up?
The real solution is simple and obvious. In future, politicos will just have to live in sealed, underground bunkers.
Did you miss the part where I said we'd jam GPS in the general area of the lawn? Really, you just provide false signals and you can pretty much deflect the drone on GPS autopilot away from it's intended target. Easy to do, off the shelf hardware exists.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
(1) Send out a large electromagnetic pulse
Tomorrows headline: "Secret Service drone jammer interferes with pace makers - Half of congress deceased" :)
What possible downsides could an EMP have...
The 2lbs would kill you dropped 10' if and only if the 2lbs is relatively compact dense, durable material like say a steel ball, if that 2 pounds is spread over 1 square foot and made of plastic it's probably not going to kill you or even put you in the hospital (though you may end up with a concussion).
Size and shape matter quite a bit in such a discussion and you can't talk about that without also talking about the accuracy of dropping such an object because a 2lb steel ball isn't going to be that big and trying to land that right on someone's head with a radio controlled drone is going to be pretty fucking hard even without wind.
Audio detection isn't nearly as broken as the article pretends. Sure if all you have is a single mic, then you have no hope. OTOH, with multiple mics, you can *localize* sounds, which means you don't need to recognize the sounds of a drone, just realize that there's some noise coming from something in the air where there shouldn't be anything. With a microphone array, you can actually pinpoint sound sources much weaker than ambient noise. It's certainly not trivial, but within the realm of what's realistic (assuming there aren't simpler solutions).
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
I just don't buy that audio can't be used. With an array of high quality microphones spread over an area fed into a software radio and some pretty hefty computing power you should be able to look for the rhythmic audio that your typical copter type drones will generate. Because even if they change the size and shape of the rotors all that does is change the frequency not the amplitudes you will see from the rhythmic action.
With some proper math and the right computing power you should be able to identify drones pretty rapidly with fourier analysis and the same microphone array could use Doppler effects to calculate position, and the directional vector. Combine this with some systems to double check such as heat, RF and conventional high band doppler radar and you should have a system that will get 99% of the drones and even provide targeting to a shoot down type system.
The key here is you need some pretty dam good microphones spread over a pretty large area feeding into a pretty massive computer array. It wouldn't be cheap or easy. The easy thing is use a doppler radar system that cross-checks it against RF emissions to eliminate birds. But IMO the best system would use all three, high band doppler radar, RF emissions and audio (and maybe even heat). With three cross checks you should be able to get pretty good accuracy.
First you would need very expensive and very powerful ones to actually defend against a drone. The cheap short range ones you talk about only work at short range like their name suggests. You would need very expensive jammers to be effective against drones. The power needed to jam every direction in the sky increases exponentially by distance. You also need a jammer that can jam the Russian GLONASS GPS system which operates at a different frequency range and most GPS chips have supported both GPS systems for years. Soon the Galileo system will also be up using even another frequency.
Jamming would never really be a viable solution in a city except during an actual attack. It would cause more damage then it could ever hope to prevent. It would have to block the radios and GPS used by planes, helicopters, police, firefighters, and anything else remotely near the jammer, to actually be effective at blocking a radio controlled drone.
Again, you folks act like RF energy cannot be controlled, it just goes off in all directions no matter what you do and that there is no way to isolate the jamming energy to small areas. This is not true. Would there be some residual affect outside the intended area? Perhaps, but if you do this right it would not be wide spread, nor would it need to extend more than a few hundred feet beyond the desired areas....
Tell me it's not possible to limit where you put the RF and control the signal strength outside the desired area to acceptable levels... I think you can do that, if you are careful and think about where you put the jammers, what antennas you use and what direction you point them.
Also, GPS jammers are neither expensive nor rare. They are off the shelf and have been for decades and well with the budget of the Secret Service (In fact I'd bet they ALREADY have a few). Directional antennas are also inexpensive and off the shelf, even at the frequencies of GPS. None of this is rocket science... Just a bit of engineering.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
I don't think that would work. After 9/11, the coverage showed unbroken windows removed from the rubble at the pentagon. The windows were designed to withstand a hit from any man-portable weapon system. This included the most powerful sniper weapons, as well as RPGs. I'm assuming the White House is no worse than the pentagon, but I didn't build either.
Learn to love Alaska
You can't build a net so high that someone can't fly over. It's hard to build a net that can't be easily cut through. It's hard to build a net that doesn't destroy the view.
Automated point defense turrets loaded with high-tensile silly string?
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
when did r/c airplanes get renamed to drones?
Meanwhile, in ten years, every tourist in DC will have a selfie drone
Which would be fine, except the DC FRZ (flight restriction zone) is a 30-mile circle around the Capital within which it is illegal to fly ANY remote control device of any kind. Includes "drones" as well as those toy RC helicopters at the mall kiosks, and the sort of RC planes that people have been flying around for many decades. Some tourist flying a quad in DC is in for a very rude awakening, as has already happened.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
I see a point where nets will go up for a while(probably after an attack). But they will be so ugly that there will be relentless pressure to take them down. Then they will have "pop-up" nets. But they won't work and the nets will go up one more time.
Then some genius will come up with a solution and the nets will go away.
But we are all taking about little quadcopters and whatnot. But there are many many types of contraptions that will come along with drone technology. Gliders, missiles, planes, darts, parachutes, combos; so fly then crawl.
Just like the stupid war on terror. The real key is not to fight the war but to prevent the causes of the war in the first place. There will always be a few nutcases so there isn't much that can be done there. But if there were to ever be regular attacks then you are doing something wrong at a much higher level.
And how long do you think that law can last when every tourist has a selfie drone? You're really going to arrest all of them for flying a one-ounce drone with a range of a hundred feet?
You would need very expensive jammers to be effective against drones. The power needed to jam every direction in the sky increases exponentially by distance.
Jamming would never really be a viable solution in a city except during an actual attack. It would cause more damage then it could ever hope to prevent. It would have to block the radios and GPS used by planes, helicopters, police, firefighters, and anything else remotely near the jammer, to actually be effective at blocking a radio controlled drone.
Nonsense. Get directional GPS antennas and point them straight up into the sky and surround the whitehouse. While you're at it point some EMP guns straight up in the air too. Nothing is suppose to be flying over the whitehouse so you don't have to worry about disrupting civilian planes, etc... Making them powerful enough to go a few thousand feet straight up but not powerful enough to interfere with LEO satelites would be simple. If you used a directional antenna (again pointed straight up and surrounding the whitehouse) to block all signals then the only drones you would have to worry about would be ones that navigated via visual cues which would be considerably harder to do.
Would be very cool.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Yes, this is what I suspect the result will be. That birds will be killed indiscrimately whenever and wherever the military / security situation deteriorates. Even in normal times I can see this happening over key locations, over tense borders, et.c.. Birds that keep to small territories will be less affected, those that migrate or have large ranges might be in increased danger of extinction.
And make the most amazing youtube videos, which would of course substantially increase the number of drones.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
You only have to make a spectacle of arresting a few and applying the existing $10,000 fine + jail time, and word gets out. Sort of like most people understand that even though you can climb the White House fence, it's a Really Bad Idea.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Yes, let's stop the causes of terror. All we need to do is reform Islam. Well, there's that problem solved. Damn, you're a genius!!!
Why even bother with drones ?
Just hop down to your local Police Station or Sheriff's department, steal the MRAP they bought to intimidate the peasants . . . . er. . . conduct their police business in a safe manner without fear of landmines or IED's, load it with explosives and drive that bastard right onto the front lawn ?
I mean, if we're going to go all Michael Bay on things, why do it with tiny ass drones ? Retrofit that MRAP so you can control IT with a transmitter, pack that baby full of ANFO and REALLY do some damage.
Better yet, in true MB fashion, send in dozens of drones first, cue some epic music THEN send in the MRAP.
This might actually work. Most drone GPS modules are sensitive to noise from the drones own RF noise, so sending out ~1575mhz noise would probably work. It would have to be for some distance outside of the whitehouse as well, as a safe measure. Drones do have failsafes that could be programmed to continue its course should it lose GPS, thus the reason for the extra distance.
I'd be inclined to modify that statement, and say. "Audio detection does NOT work, now".
Each rotor of a quadcopter is going to emit sound that depends on the number of prop blades and the prop speed. The four rotors will emit at frequencies that are almost but not quite the same, The four frequencies continuously shift by minute amounts as the control system adjusts power to stay stable in the air.
The quadcopter therefore has a very distinctive sound signature. This signature is out there, waiting to be detected, if the money can be found to develop the technology to do it.
Presumably if that happened, there would be a push for stealth quadcopters. But that's another kettle of fish.
The GPS on mine usually has 12+ satellites locked in, so its unlikely to be directed via false GPS. It'll just kick on the error routine and ignore the GPS and go into compass/accelerometer mode.
GPS Jamming doesn't work as you seem to think. Your receiver would still see quite a few signals, they'd just be lying about the position. Or, if you go with the cheaper model jammer, the receiver wouldn't see anything because the noise floor would be too high.
Switching to alternate navigation modes is indeed possible, but as I've stated in other posts, I'm suggesting that there be physical obstacles added using largely invisible structures to force the drone to fly a complex route to get where it wants, then concentrating the detection capacity along the forced route. In other words, force the bad guys to do specific things that make them more easily detected.
No system is perfect...You do what you can within the resource constraints you have and consign yourself to living with the risks that are left.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
I know a bit about radio frequency (RF), doppler radar, jamming GPS (passive and active). Near-range drone detection, tracking and characterization (within inches) is simple using doppler radar.
The real issue here is counter measures. When do you shoot (CRAM), capture, use active GPS to shift off course, etc.? Drones (electric or combustion) do emit a unique RF and acoustic signature that could be used for close range real-time counter measure decisions.
It would have to be for some distance outside of the whitehouse as well, as a safe measure. Drones do have failsafes that could be programmed to continue its course should it lose GPS, thus the reason for the extra distance.
Yeah, my guess is they won't do much until after the first successful attack.
Creating a half mile deadzone though wouldn't be a too big of deal. You might
see a comeback of payphones, emergency call boxes, paper maps and the like
in that area to compensate but it really wouldn't be that big of a deal.
The bigger deal is what to do with them everywhere else. How do you protect
schools, hospitals, playgrounds, city halls, restaurants, etc... Granted a backpack
bomb is still fairly easy but it gets alot easier when you can be miles away.